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Take a moment to kick off your shoes, relax, and refill your cup. Enjoy some poetry and a bit of art.
Browse through the assorted offerings, and hopefully you'll find something helpful, informative, or just fun.
Oh, And chocolate!

Saturday, January 11, 2014

Saturday Farmer's Market - A Brief Respite

I thought since most of the country has been blanketed by miserable,
cold weather for quite a while now, I would post a little bit of pretty.

We've had unseasonable cold here in California, too. In fact, the prolonged frosts destroyed my entire Kumquat crop and damaged quite a bit of foliage across the garden.

{Here is a picture of my bird bath covered in ice. }

On the other hand, we've had almost no rain (which we'll pay for this summer) and in between the unseasonable frosts, we had unseasonably mild weather - and this has made the garden a little confused.

I went out one day and this is what I saw. Almost the entire side yard under the fruit trees was covered in mushrooms.

Of course, I ran straight to the Master Gardener. Luckily, she was able to talk me down from the ledge.

You see, when we put our new fruit trees in, it was in the same area where we had taken out the diseased old trees, and this is what 'shrooms love. As long as there is decaying wood they will continue to come back. On the plus side, they process a lot of toxins in the soil, kind of like fleshy little filters. So it's all good.

Our 5 oranges are still doing well, and it's just about harvest time. I'll let you know how they turn out when the time comes.

Now for the fun part.

Of course you would expect violets, violas, and pansies to bloom most of the winter, but these little suckers didn't even blink at two weeks of freezing temperatures.

The Irises, and a few other bulbs are up (sorry, no pics) but I don't see any signs that they will be blooming any time soon. The Daffodils are also starting to break ground. But . . .

These little angels aren't supposed to be blooming until early March.

They apparently decided they wanted to celebrate the New Year!

I hope you enjoyed a short vacation from the polar vortex (Wait! Is that Chris Van Allsburg's new book?)
Stay warm and safe; hug your loved ones a lot; (It creates heat!) and read good books. Spring is just around the corner. (Honest!)
Let's close with a poem.

Drunken Winter
- Joseph Ceravolo

Oak oak! like like
it then
cold some wild paddle
so sky then;
flea you say
“geese geese” the boy
June of winter
of again
Oak sky

from The Green Lake is Awake: Selected Poems of Joseph Ceravolo. Copyright 1994.

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